Hokusai created sublime works during the last thirty years of his life right up to his death
at the age of ninety. Publications have hitherto presented his long career as a chronological
sequence. This book takes a fresh approach based on innovative scholarship: thematic groupings
of works are related to the major spiritual and artistic quests of Hokusai's life. Hokusai's
personal beliefs are studied here through major brush paintings drawings woodblock prints and
illustrated books. The book gives due attention to the contribution of Hokusai's daughter Eijo
(Oi) an accomplished artist in her own right. Hokusai continually explored the mutability and
minutiae of natural phenomena in his art. His late subjects and styles were based on a mastery
of eclectic Japanese Chinese and European techniques and an encyclopaedic knowledge of nature
myth and history. Mount Fuji was the most significant model for Hokusai in his quest for
immortality. This collection of Hokusai's works draws on the finest to be found in Japan and
around the world making this the most important publication for years on Hokusai and a
uniquely valuable overview of the artist's late career.
